When Zbylut left Poland for the United States with his parents, sister and brother five years ago, he couldn’t speak English but was ambitious and motivated to achieve academic success.

“I perfect my reading by reading government articles,” he said. “I go on the IRS [web site] and I read tax policy articles because those are the hardest to wrap your mind around.”

“They’re very good sources for perfecting the English language,” he said. “A lot of words are SAT words.”

Although Zbylut was always eager to excel, he never thought he’d have his pick of any college in the country.

“You can ask anyone that in my freshman year I never really had any confidence in getting into these great schools,” he said. “But time passed. I did many things to improve my ability. I took as many advanced placement courses as I could, I participated in many extracurricular activities – debate, mock trial, student newspaper.”

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